It is still curious to find, however, that Red Hat’s desktop endeavors are facing a barrier which is due to Microsoft licensing (for codecs). This was mentioned about a month ago and it was once again mentioned in the press yesterday.

Chief Executive Matthew Szulik said in an interview that the software maker is still working to translate the software into foreign languages, make sure it is compatible with different PC hardware and work out some issues relating to licensing of some of the software in the package.

Don’t you love the fact that Red Hat buys codecs from Microsoft? Microsoft has illegally elbowed RealNetworks (prosecution in the court is there to prove this), polluted the Web with proprietary codec-encumbered content and now they use that to put a price tag on Red Hat’s desktop. Microsoft could use Linspire (and possible Xandros/Novell too) as some sort of a precedence. That’s not what we want to see. How long will it be before Microsoft says that Red Hat needs to pay for Moonlight, Mono, OpenOffice.org, Wine, and so forth? The Microsoft-Linux deals have been extremely harmful.

…the Tokyo producer of consumer electronics and communications equipment, agreed to cross-license each other’s patents in a number of product lines. In a statement, the companies said the move expands their current relationship. With the deal, they’ll swap information and incorporate each other’s technologies in car-navigation systems and other consumer-electronics products. Kenwood will pay Microsoft a license fee. Specific terms weren’t disclosed.

Why are there no specifics? When Microsoft had similar deals with Samsung and Fuji Xerox, it only bothered to mention Linux (probably to use that as FUD). Any detailed list of patents? Of course not. It’s a partnership in the clouds. Nothing has ever been shown or proven. Nothing was tested in court. Shades of SCO.

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4 Comments

Who says the licensing issues that Red Hat is sorting out are proprietary codec licenses? For all we know, it could be some GPL2/GPL3 thing. Or a BSD/GPL thing (much like the spat about wifi drivers on kerneltrap). Or maybe Red Hat is including some piece of open source code who’s license is a bit ambiguous or unclear (happens all the time with other distro’s as well. Just look at the Debian legal mailing lists).

I’d still rather see Microsoft getting paid for codecs in a Linux desktop than see them getting paid for a full copy of Windows (and Office). If we have to take baby steps to get away from Microsoft — the regime that has caused more damage to the universe than anyone in recorded history — so be it.

The lunacy of the EPO with its patent maximalism will likely go unchecked (and uncorrected) if Battistelli gets his way and turns the EPO into another SIPO (Croatian in the human rights sense and Chinese in the quality sense)

Another long installment in a multi-part series about UPC at times of post-truth Battistelli-led EPO, which pays the media to repeat the lies and pretend that the UPC is inevitable so as to compel politicians to welcome it regardless of desirability and practicability

Implementing yet more of his terrible ideas and so-called 'reforms', Battistelli seems to be racing to the bottom of everything (patent quality, staff experience, labour rights, working conditions, access to justice etc.)

"Good for trolls" is a good way to sum up the Unitary Patent, which would give litigators plenty of business (defendants and plaintiffs, plus commissions on high claims of damages) if it ever became a reality

Microsoft's continued fascination with and participation in the effort to undermine Alice so as to make software patents, which the company uses to blackmail GNU/Linux vendors, widely acceptable and applicable again